Transcendent Wisdom of the Maya by Gabriela Jurosz-Landa

Author:Gabriela Jurosz-Landa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shamanism
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2019-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

12

ARRIVAL AND ACCLIMATION

March 6, 2015 (3 Kan); March 7, 2015 (4 Kame); March 8, 2015 (5 Kej)

Once again, I took the three-and-a-half-hour ride in the chicken bus from Guatemala City to Chichicastenango. It was peak rush hour with Friday-after-work traffic, and the streets were packed with buses and cars, all expelling clouds of black Third World exhaust.

The bus filled up quickly. I sat next to a young man who told me about his life as a construction worker, gardener, and security guard. Once a month, he took the bus from the capital of five million inhabitants to his hometown, Huehuetenango, a city that is situated even higher up in the mountains than where I was heading.

I also interacted with a mom and her baby sitting behind me, and I talked to a humble man from the Quichéan district capital, El Quiché, which, since the Spanish Conquest, also goes by the name of Santa Cruz. The town is a half-hour ride from Chichicastenango.

El Quiché, or rather Q’umarkaj, the archaeological site some five miles outside of today’s town, is the former Maya capital. We know from historical literature that among the Maya, just as among any people, there were many quarrels and rebellions against the kings by their sons or other members of the government even before the European Conquest brought the culture to its knees. With the conquest of Q’umarkaj, many had to flee, and the nobility established the town of Chuwilá—“the town within craters”—also called Santo Tomás or Chichicastenango.

As explained earlier, Maya law and land are not congruent with national Guatemalan law and land, and so Santa Cruz today is the capital of the national Guatemalan administration in the district of El Quiché, and Chichicastenango is the Maya administrative capital where Don Tomás resided.

I arrived at my destination and got to Josefa’s house at 7:00 p.m. to take her out to dinner. We went to one of the few restaurants in town, where we had grilled steak and rice with a sauce made from avocado and chicken stock.

Josefa was happy to have me staying with her. This time I didn’t sleep in the living room. She gave me the room where her mother used to sleep when she was staying at the house. Josefa—and her children when they visited—had to pass through that room to the shower and bathroom, but other than that, it would be “my” room for the eight weeks of my stay. It would also be the only place I had privacy (or semi-privacy), where I would be away from the eyes of the people and be able to reflect on the ceremonies of my initiation process and receive dreams and visions and writings on the wall. Josefa had prepared the room with her sense of beauty and female tenderness, putting little flowers in a vase on the dresser to welcome me.

It was night, and I laid on the bed, relaxing from the long journey, the conversations, and the car exhaust. I felt a little worried about what was to come.

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